In spite of the many plights, environmental and otherwise, facing the world, the pope has called humanity to hope.

"An economy that kills, that excludes, that starves, that concentrates enormous wealth in a few to the detriment of many, that multiplies poverty and grinds down salaries, that pollutes, that produces war, is not an economy," he said in an autobiography released Jan. 14. It is a perversion, "an emptiness, an absence, a sickness."

"Growing up in my mother's Pueblo household made me fierce. I'll be fierce for all of us, our planet, and all of our protected land," Haaland said in 2021 ahead of her congressional confirmation vote.